Chocolate Carrot Bundt Cake with Baby Blue Cream Cheese Glaze
Every celebration deserves chocolate cake, but an Easter celebration deserves a carrot chocolate cake. The carrots make for an incredibly moist cake, but never reveal their bright-orange identity. Finely grating them with a microplane contributes to how easily they blend in. The baby blue cream cheese glaze pays tribute to a traditional carrot cake’s cream cheese frosting and is the perfect tangy – and colorful – counterpart to the sweet cake.
Servings 16
Ingredients
For the cake:
- 2 cups all purpose flour (270 g)
- 1 cup Dutch process cocoa powder, sifted, if lumpy, plus more for coating pan (100 g)
- 3 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 3/4 cups granulated sugar (350 g)
- 1 2/3 cups light brown sugar
- 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
- 3 yolks room temperature
- 4 large eggs room temperature
- 3/4 cup buttermilk room temperature
- 1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted and slightly cooled (45 g)
- 4 cups lightly packed, finely grated carrots (preferably with a microplane) (495 g)
For the glaze:
- 4 oz cream cheese room temperature
- 3/4 cup confectioners' sugar (75 g)
- 5 tbsps whole milk
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- A few drops of blue gel food coloring
- Baby blue sparkling sugar for sprinkling
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 10 to 12-cup bundt pan with softened butter or cooking spray. Generously dust with cocoa powder, knocking out the excess, and set aside.
- Combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl and whisk to combine. Set aside. In a large bowl, combine the sugars and oil and whisk vigorously. Add the yolks and eggs, one at a time, gently whisking after each addition. Add the buttermilk and vanilla and whisk again. Add the melted chocolate and whisk a final time.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and with a rubber spatula, gently fold the dry into the wet, until only a few streaks of flour remain. Add the carrots and fold again, until incorporated.
- Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and bake for 55 to 65 minutes, rotating the cake at the halfway point, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a moist crumb or two.
- Remove the cake from the oven and let it rest on a cooling rack for about 20 minutes or until you can easily handle the pan without burning yourself. Run a butter knife around the outside of the pan, as well as around the tube in the middle, and invert the cake onto the cooling rack, tapping the bottom of the pan if it sticks. Let the cake cool completely before glazing.
- To make the glaze, whisk the cream cheese in a medium bowl until smooth, add the sugar and whisk again. Add the milk and vanilla and whisk until a thick, pourable glaze forms, adding more milk, if necessary. Add the food coloring and whisk a final time.
- Pour the glaze decoratively over the cooled cake. Let set at least one hour. Sprinkle with sparkling sugar right before serving. Cake will keep tightly wrapped in plastic wrap on the counter for 3 days, or if you are concerned about the cream cheese in the glaze, it can be refrigerated. Bring back to room temp before serving.
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